


#27 - Dying to Try

by angelsandbrowncoats



Series: Eurovision 2017 Fanfic Challenge [17]
Category: Starship - Team StarKid
Genre: Demiromanticism, F/M, Fluff, Truth or Dare, like all the tropes, this got out of hand tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 08:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsandbrowncoats/pseuds/angelsandbrowncoats
Summary: Krayonder and Specs are trapped in a cave overnight and decide to play Truth or Dare to pass the time.





	#27 - Dying to Try

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said, this is pretty much just tropes.

"Are you alright?" Krayonder asked, perhaps more vehemently than circumstances warranted. He was perfectly fine, after all.

"I'm fine," Specs replied, standing up from where she had landed. The ground giving way beneath them had been an unexpected obstacle in their mission, especially when the fall had crushed their communicators. She calculated the difficulty of escaping the cavern they'd fallen into. They were probably going to be there until the other rangers realized they were missing and sent a rescue party.

"According to my calculations, we will have to wait a minimum of four hours before we are rescued, although the most likely outcome is ten hours."

"So we'll probably be here overnight?" Krayonder asked. Specs nodded.

"Sweet! It'll be like a sleepover from back when we were in the academy!"

Specs smiled slightly at that - they hadn't _actually_ been sleepovers, no matter what Krayonder insisted. Not intentionally, anyway. He would come over for help on his coursework and then he'd end up distracting her with stories or videos until they both passed out around three a.m.

"Do y'think there're enough branches down here to build a fire?" he asked. She scanned the cavern, most of the wood was in the rubble pile from where they'd fallen, and nodded again, "There should be. We should build one. Otherwise there is a forty-three percent chance we will freeze to death and an eighty-six percent chance we'll have permanent nerve damage."

"Cool. I'll get started on that."

"My Exo-Botanical Scanner has located some edible plantlife over there," Specs pointed further into the cavern, "I'll try to locate it."

She returned a quarter of an hour later to a roaring bonfire with an armful of cave mushrooms and edible mosses.

"You're sure these are safe?"

"Are you doubting my invention?"

"'Course not, Specs. If you built it, I'm sure it works!"

"Good," she replied, unsure of the confidence in her voice. How was she managing to banter when her anxiety was through the roof? It had to be something about Krayonder, something that made her feel comfortable, like she could be herself. It was that easiness that she envied, that she loved, not that she had any intention of voicing such a feeling.

"So, what should we do?" Krayonder asked, "We haven't got any video signal down here, so that's out. Oh! I know! February taught me some great sleepover games. We should try those."

"Sure," Specs shrugged, although she was a bit concerned. The shyence officer had an... odd... idea of what was fun.

"Apparently there's this old game from Earth called 'truth or dare'."

"How does it work?"

"Well, one person asks another, 'Truth or dare?' and the other picks one, and then the first person gives them a question if they pick truth or a dare if they pick dare and they have to do it."

"Okay..."

"I'll go first and show you. Ask me."

"Truth or dare?" Specs asked, still slightly unsure.

"Dare. Now you dare me to do something and I have to do it. And make sure it's a real dare, too. Something tough. Something cool."

"Okay," she said, starting to get it, "I dare you to... jump over the fire."

"Not bad, not bad," he muttered, backing away from the fire to give himself a bit of a running start. He took two breaths before running forward and leaping off the ground, yelling, "Whohooooo!" as he soared over the flames, crashing into the dirt on the other side.

"That was awesome!" he threw a fist in the air, unable to sit with the adrenaline pumping through him, "Your turn. Truth or dare?"

"Ummm, truth," it wasn't that she was scared, per se, it was that she was a bit nervous about what her friend might think an acceptable dare.

"Heh, you are _so_ the type to pick truth."

"Well you're the type to pick dare."

"Touche," he said (managing to mangle the pronunciation), "Alright, what _really_ happened to Professor Adams at the academy?"

"You still remember that?"

"Specs, I'm pretty sure there's a _statue_ of it."

"Oh," she replied, a little taken aback. It was before she had known Krayonder as anything other than the class clown. Second year at the academy, they'd both had the same jerk of a teacher, Professor Adams, for an engineering class. Professor Adams was the kind of professor who didn't enjoy teaching and was only there for his personal research project and to remind everyone how much better he was. Things had come to head a month before midterms, when Specs had pointed out a fundamental flaw in the machine he was building. He had been enraged that a student dared to correct him (and dared to be right) and had singled her out from that point on, mocking her for every misstep, as well as things like her awkward speech patterns and general appearance.

"I was kind of used to being made fun of, so I ignored him, mostly. You were there. But then he insulted one of my little inventions. He'd seen me working on it and told me what a piece of trash it was. I couldn't let that slide, and since I had paid attention to the syllabus and calendar, I knew he was going to be showing us the different kinds of safety-tech they'd installed on G.L.E.E ships, so I made a few modifications the night before. I replaced the safety-phaser with an actual one, I oiled all the surfaces so that they'd be extra slippery, and I added a few 'special effects' so that when I sent the signal to my robots, they'd break onto the display ship in a dramatic display."

"Like the fog," he prompted.

"That was actually dry ice. I hacked the lighting so that I could make the lights flicker and make the robots look big enough to be the AI warriors. Most robots are too small and simple to actually attack us, it's only the AI ones that can, so mine were perfectly harmless. Professor Adams didn't know that, though, and almost everything I did was undetectable once I fed the security cameras a loop. As far as the authorities knew, Professor Adams brought a real phaser to class and started firing it off randomly in a fit of madness. The fact that he insisted the academy go into lockdown because of an infiltration of robots just added to the appearance of insanity... What exactly does a statue of that even look like?"

"I think it was Professor Adams firing a phaser into the air, entitled 'The Mad Scientist'. It won a student contest."

"That's fascinating. Is it your turn now?"

"Yep."

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"Okay, I dare you to go explore that off-shoot cave."

"The one that's all dark?"

"Yes. That one."

"Alright, man! Let's do this!" Krayonder grabbed a lantern and his phaser and set off down the trail. Specs reclined by the fire, thinking back to the academy. A few people had guessed it was her, but most never figured it out. Still, it was the closest she'd ever felt to popular, since just about every student was over the moon about Adams getting the boot.

"Aw, man, Specs! You've got to see this!" Krayonder called back from the back of the cave. Specs stood up, wary about leaving the fire unattended, but figuring that he hadn't sounded that far away. Walking over and trying to ignore the pressing darkness, Specs found Krayonder with his face seemingly pressed against the wall.

"Um, what are you doing?"

"Look in here," he instructed, moving back to reveal a small hole in the cave wall. When she put her eye up to it, she gasped. Another cave, almost as large as the one they'd fallen into was on the other side. But it wasn't empty. It was filled with thousands upon thousands of glow-worms, giving off enough light for her to see a waterfall on the far side, sparkling with the green-blue of the creatures surrounding it.

"That's beautiful," she said. Krayonder nodded, "I know, right!"

When they eventually returned to their 'campsite', Krayonder asked her again.

"Truth," she repeated.

"Well, since February was the one who taught me, why don't I ask the question she said everyone uses for truth."

"And that is?"

"Who d'you like?"

"I-" she internally cringed as she felt herself blush, "I like a lot of people."

"Nah, man. Who d'you, y'know, _like_ like? Who are you crushing on, y'know?"

"Oh. That," she swallowed. She couldn't very well tell him, could she? Licking her lips in a nervous habit, she began, "I don't really know. I'm not really big into that stuff, not like, you know, February."

"Oh," Krayonder frowned, looking oddly disheartened, "Well, that's okay I guess."

Really? Not 'You just haven't met the right person'? That was what her family had always told her. Suddenly it felt very important that Krayonder know she was demiromantic.

"Not that I'm against it," she said, too fast to feel natural, "I mean, I need to know the person well before I... _like_ them. And even then, I'd probably never tell them unless I completely trusted them and had a pretty good idea that they felt the same."

Krayonder was looking at her intensely, and she had to look away. She stared into the fire to avoid eye contact.

"Do you trust me?" he asked quietly.

"Hey, I answered the question. It's your turn," she said, unsubtley ignoring the question, "Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to juggle three of these mushrooms for two minutes straight."

Krayonder shrugged, picking out three mushrooms from their 'rations' pile, giving a couple of attempts before finding a rhythm that he could keep while Specs counted for him. It took him six minutes to get the desired streak, but he did so, disappointment at the lack of danger in his task buried under the anticipation of getting to ask Specs his next question.

"I did it, now it's your turn. Truth or dare?"

Specs thoughts were racing about Krayonder's likely next question and she decided not to risk it, "Dare."

Krayonder's brain shorted. No, that was wrong. Specs wasn't the type to take a dare. Why would she pick dare? Unless... unless she was afraid to answer his next question. She was smart, she'd probably been able to guess where he was going. But why would she be scared, unless..?

"I dare you to kiss me."

"What? You can't-"

"But only if you want to," he added, just in case he'd guessed wrong. She may be smart, but he knew he wasn't.

"I- I-"

"Well, c'mon. Either you do or you don't."

"I do, but- but I don't know how..." she said, more honestly than she'd meant to. Krayonder stared at her, "You mean, you've _never_..? Ever?"

"Look, I know it's pathetic, but-"

"Dead god damn, Specs! It's not pathetic. I mean I know there's a difference between 'first' and 'first choice' but it kinda makes me feel like I'm your first choice and I've never been anyone's first choice before. It's actually kinda hot," he trailed off, a bit embarrassed by his admission to being eternally second (or third, or fourth) best.

"Well you are mine. First choice, that is."

"For real? But why? I'm just a slightly unstable, trigger-happy dumbass. You're a genius, Specs, you could do so much better..."

"What are you talking about? You're the most friendly and accepting person I've ever met. You can make friends with anyone, you're the life of every party. Being good at math isn't even close to that level."

"Then let's agree to disagree," Krayonder shrugged, stepping closer to her, "But first let's get back to that dare..."

"I still don't know what I'm doing..."

Krayonder may have been terrified of letting Specs down, as he was sure an idiot like himself would, eventually, but he wanted so badly to try that he'd take that risk for as long as she would let him. He took one of her hands in his, answering, "That's alright, I can show you."

The game ended by silent agreement, and when the other rangers found them the next morning, they were at the foot of a dying fire, curled up next to each other in sleep.


End file.
